Unpopular Essays

by Bertrand Russell

In this volume of essays Russell is concerned to combat, in one way or another, the growth of dogmatism, whether of the Left or of the Right, which has hitherto characterised our tragic century.

Genres: Philosophy, Nonfiction, Essays, Politics, History, Classics, Religion

194 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1950

About the author

Bertrand Arthur William Russell, 3rd Earl Russell, OM, FRS, was a Welsh philosopher, historian, logician, mathematician, advocate for social reform, pacifist, and prominent rationalist. Although he was usually regarded as English, as he spent the majority of his life in England, he was born in Wales, where he also died.

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1950 "in recognition of his varied and significant writings in which he champions humanitarian ideals and freedom of thought."

Reviews

[Maru Kun · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bertrand Russell was one of the world’s best known public intellectuals in the latter half of the last century. This fact Britain can be proud of, being a country that has produced few public intellectuals in recent history and which looks unlikely to produce another one ever again.

Despite Russell’s past popularity his star has shone a little less brightly over the past few decades. This is not surprising in our Age of Celebrity, an age when the charms of Kim Kardashian and the brains of Kanye West are what most people aspire to. In this age of glitter and good-looks Russell is especially handicapped; in his later years he had the appearance of a somewhat scrawnier but more human looking version of Gonzo the Muppet.


Left: humanist, philosopher and recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Literature, Bertrand Russell. Right: respected actor and stage performer, Gonzo the Muppet.

Although I am willing to bet Russell would have been a demon on Twitter as well, in the first part of this century his thoughtful, rationale and profound essays expressing deeply held humanistic beliefs would be about as welcome to our current leaders as an expert at a Tory Party conference or a ladder at the Mexican border.

That’s a shame, but my sense is that Bertrand Russell’s star is being to shine once more.

It is people like Bertrand Russell that the world needs right now to calmly, rationally and purposefully take the Twitter account, the “alternative facts”, the press briefings and similar dangerous toys away from the children who have got their grubby little hands on them; children who risk hurting themselves and others if they are allowed to carry on playing their games unsupervised.

This book is as full of Russell’s lucid, beautiful writing as any other book that Russell ever wrote. Many of its essays were written at the peak of the cold war when concerns about nuclear weapons were at their height. Russell’s vision of a world government upholding rational and scientific principles to help contain the deadly threat of nuclear weapons seems quaint and ridiculous these days, but remember these are also days when people can be persuaded that the United Nations is a communist plot to take away our guns.

It is worth pausing to think about whether Russell’s vision was essentially right: that the nations of the world need to establish global institutions to collectively address the most serious problems faced by human civilization. A case can be made that all Russell had wrong was the issue. The clearest and most present danger to human civilization may no longer be nuclear weapons, although they are still a risk. The danger Russell underestimated was environmental degradation and man-made climate change.

Let's quote from passages that Russell wrote when the Nazi legacy was still a recent memory and the dangers of authoritarian populism were fresh in everyone's thoughts. Who could have imagined that these quotes would be as relevant today as they were sixty odd years ago?

This first quote goes to the heart of many of our current problems: the GOPs war on science and denial of climate change; UK politician’s insistence that the ‘will of the people’ (no matter how manipulated or lied to) overrides any objective evidence of the impact of their proposed policies:

...the essence of the Liberal outlook lies not in what opinions are held, but in how they are held: instead of being held dogmatically, they are held tentatively, and with a consciousness that new evidence may at any moment lead to their abandonment...""

This quote anticipates the age of the re-tweet, that spark of ignorance that has ignited any number of fake news stories. “…Lead astray by cocksure prophets…ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans…”? Just turn on the TV.

..so long as men are not trained to withhold judgment in the absence of evidence, they will be led astray by cocksure prophets, and it is likely that their leaders will be either ignorant fanatics or dishonest charlatans...""

Was Russell looking into a crystal ball when he wrote this? It's almost uncanny.

"...no one can deny, in face of the evidence [of the Nazis] that it is easy, given military power, to produce a population of fanatical lunatics. It would be equally possible to produce a population of sane and reasonable people, but many governments do not wish to do so, since such people would fail to admire the politicians who are at the head of these governments...""

It’s too much to finish on another depressing quote. Bertrand Russell was right about many things. Let’s hope he is right about this as well:

"...it is said that, in a war between Liberals and fanatics, the fanatics are sure to win, owing to their more unshakable belief in the rightness of their cause [but] all history...is against it. Fanatics have failed...because they have attempted the impossible or....because they were too unscientific to adopt the right means; they have failed also because they roused the hostility of those they wished to coerce...

[E. G. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Introduction
Preface

--Philosophy and Politics
--Philosophy for Laymen
--The Future of Mankind
--Philosophy's Ulterior Motives
--The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed
--On Being Modern-minded
--An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish
--The Functions of a Teacher
--Ideas that Have Helped Mankind
--Ideas that Have Harmed Mankind
--Eminent Men I Have Known
--Obituary (1937)

Index

[Greg · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is kind of like common sense 101 to some, or utter bullshit and the kind of thinking that is wrong with this dirty humanist infected nation of ours 101 to others.

I wish I remember where I saw it, I think it was some Christian website, where they mock humanist ideas and have a picture of a very aged Bertrand Russell, which makes him look pretty frail and ridiculous, and it asks would you trust anything something that looks like this said. To be fair whenever I see a picture of that fat fuck Rush Limbaugh or the used car salesman smile of Joel Olsteen I think similar things, just looking at this how could you trust anything these people say. In Russell's defense though the guy is old, and people don't look their best when they reach 90; in Olsteen's I'm pretty sure the huckster smile is all part of the slick image he manufactures for his livelihood. In Rush's case, I don't know how to justify it. The man is just a deluded asshole, and his essence is probably just seeping out of his pores or something.

Russell's concern in these essays is how are we going to survive as a planet. Written in the early days of the Cold War, he was (wrongly) convinced that unless something drastic happened we would end up destroying each other by the year 2000. These essays all in one way or another deal with questions of why are we at this brink? Obviously, since we are here right now, the situation wasn't quite as dire as Russell though, or at least not as immediate, but it's not like we are out of the woods yet. If he was overly pessimistic about the world coming to an end, he is overly optimistic about a decline in religious manias, silly him thinking that we had grown-up enough to leave fairy tales behind, especially apocalyptic ones.

Quite a bit of this book is how irrationality and ignorance create problems, and stop any meaningful solutions from happening. As I said this is either common sense, or bullshit, depending on what you believe.

Russell's big solution though is a little weird. He advocates a one world government. Pointing to the flourishing of the Greeks when they threw off the shackles of their own dogmatic superficial beliefs when they became cosmopolitan, Russell thinks that this is something that can be done to save our planet from annihilation. He has good points for why this is necessary, and I nodded along with him, but a one world government is about as realistic at this point as my no-government world. I appreciate the idea he has, and maybe he is on to something.

Why a one-world government would be a good thing? This isn't from the book, but from Evangelical literature, they hate the idea of a one-world government (except for the one that JC brings after the war to end all wars), I mean irrationally fear it, as if it is something that is knocking at our door, and that is coming and will take away their guns and make them wear barcodes on their neck. Their paranoia at this, and their hatred at the possibility of a 'peaceful world' stinks to them of the Anti-Christ (yes in Evangelical literature the Anti-Christ will try to bring peace secularly, what an evil fuck he must be to try to do that). Now I like to think that if Chick believes something with that kind of hatred then it just might be a good idea. I've never given too much thought to a one-world government, but if the Evangelicals hate it, then maybe it's a good thing.

[Alexandros · Rating 1 out of 5]

Halbe Buch

[John · Rating 4 out of 5]

Twelve essays with several written at the height of the Cold War with the world on the brink of nuclear annihilation. Happily Russell was wrong or perhaps premature in his predictions. What has happened is the reawakening of right wing lunacy and dogmatism. The rise to the top of politics megalomaniac narcissistic bellends.

The essay on An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish seemed very contemporary. Supernatural or apparent magic is still preferred by the majority rather than rationality with the concept that man is a rational animal patently absurd.

To quote Russell: “Modern morals are a mixture of two elements: on the one hand, rational precepts as to how to live together peacefully in a society, and on the other hand traditional taboos derived originally from some ancient superstition, but proximately from sacred books, Christian, Mohammedan, Hindu or Buddhist”.

Russell’s answer to live peacefully is an international government which in theory sounds good but in practice unlikely with nationalism, jingoism and billionaires controlling the narrative. I fear we will muddle along towards oblivion with the lunatics in charge of the asylum.

[shams hoter | · Rating 2 out of 5]

كتاب يضم مجموعة من البحوث كتبت على مدار خمسة عشر عامًا ، هي بمجملها أقرب إلى الخواطر منها الأبحاث الفلسفية الممنهجة ، وآراء تخص الفلسفة في قسمها الأكبر ، يتناول فيها راسل وعلى غير عادته في مؤلفاته الأخرى كل موضوعات المعرفة الإنسانية من فلسفة وعلم اجتماع وسياسة ودين من وجهة نظر ناقدة وتهكمية إلى حد كبير ، فهي في مجملها سخرية من الآراء الفلسفية التي أثرت مسيرة العلم والحياة الإنسانية منذ فجر المعرفة ..

[Muhammad Ehab · Rating 2 out of 5]

هذا الكتاب يُقرأ في سياقه التاريخي، حيث يناقش فيه راسل مجموعة من القضايا بأسلوبه التحليلي المميز، والعصي على النقد في آن واحد. تمثل القضايا مشاكل عصرية في ذلك الوقت، الكثير منها لا أظن أنها تشغل القاريء المعاصر، بالرغم أن هناك بعض الدروس المستفادة بها والتي مازلنا نجهلها في وطننا العربي المتأهر ثقافيًا وحداثيًا.
سخرية راسل وتهكمه على بعض الأمور قد تكون لطيفة في بعض الأحيان، ولكنها قد تكون ملهية للقاريء عن القضية الأساسية وتدفعه للاقتناع غير المنطقي ببعض الأمور. أذكر في ذلك سخريته من نقد كانط للعقل العملي قائلًا أنه عاد به إلى سباته الدوجمائي مرة أخرى بعد أن أصدر عملًا عظيمًا مثل نقد العقل المحض.
بشكل عام الكتاب جيد، وممل نوعًا ما بشكل عمدي من راسل حتى يتماشى مع عنوان الكتاب Unpopular Essays. لأنه يخاطب قارئا معينًا.

[Slim Khezri · Rating 5 out of 5]

This work contains 10 essays written between 1935 and 1950, with the common theme being the pernicious impact of dogmatic, unsupportable beliefs. By and large, Russell is highly effective in making his case across a broad range of topics, from the debunking of philosophy's giants such as Plato ("That Plato's Republic should have been admired, on its political side, by decent people is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history."), Aristotle ("Aristotle, in spite of his reputation, is full of absurdities.") and Hegel ("To anyone who still cherishes the hope that man is a more or less rational animal, the success of this farrago of nonsense must be astonishing.") to the fallacies of discrimination against women, xenophobia and our modern public education system.

His sharpest attacks are reserved for Man's superstitions and particularly for those of the religious variety. Russell is a well-known rationalist thinker and atheist and his views are driven by the common sense dictum that one should only believe that which has sufficient supporting, scientific evidence. This leads to the view that deism is unlikely and that modern revealed religions are pure folly. He convincingly notes the common drivers of these fatuous beliefs across epochs to be fear, a need for self-importance, ignorance and socialization.

GOOD BOOK, WORTH READING ;)

[Iluvatar . · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of essays.
my most favorite is an outline of intellectual rubbish

[Μιτς Γιωτίξ · Rating 4 out of 5]

I disagree with some of Russell's ideas, but the trick is to remember that the essays were written during the cold war. Apart from that, it was a good read.

[Mark Gowan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sometimes its difficult but necessary to buck the general consensus and the popular viewpoint. A recent example of this is the divisive Iraqi war: you are, afterall, "for" us or "against" us. Russell's unpopularity perhaps began when he spoke out against WWI and Britain's role in it.

Unpopular Essays is a collection of some of Russell's unpopular viewpoints. They date from the early 1900's to around the end of WWI. Because of their age, they are dated, but unfortunately humanity often repeats its history, learning little from its mistakes. Because of this, the essays are applicable today. Three stars because of the dated material, that can be a little difficult to get through unless one is interested in history. Three stars because of Russell's way of pointing out the importance sticking to your guns, keeping your dignity, and saying what you mean, popular or not.

[W]

A thought provoking book.However unpopular they may be,many of Russel's ideas resonate with me.

[Abhinav · Rating 3 out of 5]

As good an example as any of a book scuttled irreparably by expectations; or perhaps that's only my desperate attempt to explain my unsatisfactory reading experience.

I'd read Bertrand Russell's 'A History of Western Philosophy' for a college philosophy course, and I was impressed. That might even be the one book that set me off on the path of reading more formal philosophy. It at least solidified that direction. I'd also been exposed to Russell's classic arguments like the 'teapot' back when I was obsessed with intellectual atheism. I'd heard of Russell's attempts to build mathematics from first principles, and I'd admired from a safe distance.

The expectation then: this book would be a marvel of clarity and lucidity, explaining in simple terms complex ideas, with watertight logic and bulletproof rationality. The reality.. was a little different.
I spent much of the first half of the book confounded by how much Russell resorted to using rhetorical tricks. To indicate the foolishness of Kant's ideas, he would refer to his age, and his limited exposure to the world, and that he had a servant carry his umbrella for him. How does that disprove Kant? It doesn't, but it weakens our receptivity to the ideas from an ignorant, doddering old man. The same with Marx, and other thinkers Russell took fault with. This is almost textbook ad-hominem. There's no chance Russell, a top-class logician, would be unaware of such a fallacy, so it must have been a deliberate choice.

The end result was that I, who would find myself in agreement with the thrust of many of his ideas, such as that doubtful empiricism is the only cure to dogma, was left cold. Russell implored for some epistemical humility, and ironically, I found none in his words at all. You might ask me to ignore the man for the ideas, but it's hard, given how explicitly Russell does *not* do this.

Halfway through the book, I found a mode of reading that made the experience more enjoyable. I stopped looking for a fair presentation of ideas like in the 'History of Western Philosophy'; instead, dare I say it, I read it more as a clever satire, a comedic takedown of all things Russell disliked. More standup comedy, in the vein of social ranters like a certain G. Carlin, than philosophy. The sharp wit, the searing sarcasm and Russell's easy way with words, while describing the form more than the content, made the content more palatable.

Because Russell does have interesting things to say. His rejection of certainty, and his call to use a tiny bit of anthropology to cure certitudes about things like human nature resonate. Or history. Russell's use of historical references to dissociate us from the self-evident truth of modern day thought really works. There is little depth, but the breadth is overpowering. Russell's exhortation to rid ourselves of a sense of being better than another is visionary. He repeats this in many ways and for different things, such as for men over women, or the British over the Indians, that the truth of his conviction presses.

And yet, despite Russell's cynicism that there is any truth at all in any beliefs humans have held about human relations, he has moments of optimism, sprinkled amidst the doomsaying. He does not believe that humans are fundamentally bloodthirsty, but under the thrall of fear, can do bloodthirsty things. He believes that kindness and peace can be taught to a population through education.

How? There are few suggestions here beyond 'we should do it'. The strength of these essays are in the wide range of ideas they take shots at. Russell is brutal in his equality: he treats Plato's Republic with as much disdain as the Catholic Church or Marx's theories. When their fire is sated, and the time has come to offer an alternative, the essays spare little room.

I'm also curious how Russell's faith in science as the only guiding light amidst a fog of unverifiable dogma would have held up today, when the dogmatic substructures of many sciences has been slowly surfaced. Whatever he might have said, he would have said it with confidence and wit, this much I know.

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

The world changed a lot in the period these essays were written, the 1930s and 1940s, yet there's still a lot of thematic unity here, the content being very relevant even up until the present day. 

There's a lot of snark, but it only makes the book that much more enjoyable, even if you disagree with a lot of Russel's views as I do. He goes after dogmatism, religious and secular. He goes after ancient philosophers, that Plato's Republic should have been admired on its political side by decent people is perhaps the most astonishing example of literary snobbery in all history, but also modern ones as well. Perhaps in his dedication to empiricism he's not entirely sure of any of his own beliefs, but he believes that some ideas are certain enough to be very useful, and ought to be defended with conviction. 

Such ideas would include egalitarianism and the malleability of human nature. He even believes in the grand efficacy of a one world government, as many intellectuals have and continue to do so, but what greatly surprised me is Russell's open advocacy of the establishment of such a government through force. At least keep in mind that he had just witnessed two world wars and expected the third one to be fought with nuclear weapons.

The system must be built up as a grand alliance and if there's any state that wants to retain its sovereignty but stands no chance against the alliance, then it honestly ought to be invaded for the good of mankind. I do not doubt from this and his other writings that Russell is a genuine progressive that he only wants the greatest freedom and liberty that can be had for mankind as a whole, yet such a rash means really illustrates the force that the idea of a one world government has over people, and if a prominent philosopher like Russell is flat out willing to openly advocate war in that pursuit, I can only imagine the amount of duplicity actual politicians have engaged in since then in the same well intentioned pursuit.

Russell's 'unpopular' views leave him at odds across the political spectrum and in one of the topics I actually agree with, Russell explains that he does not believe in the inevitability of progress ridiculing it as symptom of confirmation bias. He attacks Hegel for this in a very humorous manner, but also criticizes his intellectual descendants, the Marxists and their belief in the inevitability of Communism. 

There's an entire essay attacking the idea of the virtue of the oppressed. It begins only when the oppressors come to have bad conscience, and this only happens when their power is no longer secure. The idealizing of the victim is useful for a time: if virtue is the greatest of goods and if subjection makes people virtuous, it is kind to refuse them power, since it would destroy their virtue.

My favorite essay was the first, Philosophy and Politics as it's a topic that fascinates me. I think he overstates the case that empiricism leads to democracy. There's basically no mention of how economic elements influence the form of governments. The assertion that every important war since 1700 has been won by the more democratic regime is also interesting, but I have doubts. Nonetheless, I admire his ironclad convictions in the freedom of the individual and the freedom of thought which everybody pays lip service to, but nobody in practice really does believe in either in the present or back then. I think its related to that belief again, in the inevitability of progress. It's okay to use force against people I disagree with, because my guys will win out in the end, so it won't get used against me. However I don't recall that connection being explicitly made in the essays. 

Despite the title, I hardly think the ideas stated here were that unorthodox at the time the essays were written, and it provides an interesting perspective of the world and of thought halfway through the 20th century and very late in Russell's own life. He even includes a self written draft of his own obituary.  

[Bob · Rating 4 out of 5]

The gulf between Bertrand Russell's serious and popular writing about philosophy seems particularly wide; I have never undertaken the Principia Mathematica and might do well to admit to myself that I never will. On the other hand his writing about philosophy for lay people is widely praised, and on the evidence of this book, understandably so.
That is all by way of explaining that I picked this up for "light" reading on a late-night subway trip, a claim which might otherwise seem preposterous.

On the heels of the Francis Wheem Marx biography, I was quite pleased to immediately come upon this passage, "Hegel's philosophy was so odd that one would not have expected him to be able to get sane men to accept it, yet he did. He set it out with so much obscurity that people thought it must be profound. [His] philosophy, in outline, is as follows. Real reality is timeless..." - and so on for two pages; the finest English pragmatism and not too many steps from Monty Python.

Russell writes entertainingly on a variety of political and religious topics - most of the points that he presses about the need to eliminate social and religious bigotry, national aggression and so on are hardly radical and he repeats himself quite a bit from one essay to the next. In a piece called "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish", he satirizes pedlars of esoteric knowledge - "it is a singular fact that the Great Pyramid always predicts the history of the world accurately up to the date of the book in question, but after that date it becomes less reliable." This is actually something that could equally be said of Russell. His commentary on Stalin and Hitler is all very well, but at several points he begins to predict, from the vantage point of 1950 or so, what the world will be like at the end of the 20th century, and is wrong on every specific suggestion, mainly that we would all be dead of thermonuclear war, or united under a single international government.

[Marios · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fearless against past "authorities" (Plato, Aristotle, Hegel, Marx etc) Russel uses logic and observation against nonsense philosophy, religion, superstitions, xenophobia, misogyny and other dogmatic beliefs of his time.

It's unfortunate that his same logic led him to believe that the human race would most likely go extinct because of nuclear weapons...but well, it was cold war, that ending was more logical than not!

His essays about philosophy and ideas were my favorite part of the book (what is and why we need philosophy) and especially "Philosophy for Laymen" (how to think logically, judge views with unemotional honesty, don't be victim of populism, get rid of dogma).
If only Russel was alive today.

All in all, it's an easy to read book and also quite entertaining and eye opening especially when reading about old beliefs and prejudices that nowadays seem completely far-fetched! ("An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish")

[J · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good philosophical readings for the bathroom or just before bed. If one is already a skeptical humanist (as Russell most surely was by the time he collected these essays) you're in the choir for his well reasoned but also well thread thoughts on things such as science, religion and the like. I would hope have given it another star if he'd left out his ridiculous political musings on a world government, though I suppose he did warn the reader with the title.

[M Jahangir kz · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am just starting reading Bertrand Russel, this is my first book of his, I am already a greatly inspired by Bertrand Russel, will read all of his books.
This book is based on the essays on a different topic that Bertrand Russel wrote in different years during his life.

The essays include great topic such as Politics and philosophy, Ideas that have harmed mankind, ideas that have benefited mankind to name a few.

[E Sweetman · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some of these essays were assigned in my European History in college. Good, enlightening, informative reading. I don't know if I could sit down and read a bunch in a row. My professor used them to make the class one of the best and most informative history classes I've ever taken. Thanks for the recall.

[Andrew Macfarlane · Rating 5 out of 5]

About as perfect a collection of essays as one could hope for. Laser-guided thinking, and whilst it shows its age in a few places, still makes you lament at the state of modern life, thinking and politics.

[Valerie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Another great choice by Dad. I hope he doesn't miss his copies of these, but since he doesn't trust computers, he'll never know I have it.

[Adam Jacobs · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's been several years, but I distinctly recall enjoying this text very much, as I do with just about all of Russell's philosophical works.

[Paul Damien · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best essay in this collection is "An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish". Sit back and get ready to laugh until you're in tears.

[Karl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Standout essays include "The Superior Virtue Of The Oppressed and 'The Functions Of A Teacher" and "An outline Of Intellectual Rubbish".

[RK Byers · Rating 4 out of 5]

really soars from “The Superior Virtue of the Oppressed” onward.

[Henry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bertrand Russell had more wit, knowledge, and life experience in his old age than most men could dream of achieving. What makes these essays unpopular? Russell argues for humanism I suppose. I’m really not sure. These essays will likely not be popular among those who vehemently believe we are living in a new age where liberal-democracy has failed to meet the world’s challenges. This is despite the fact that the book was written in 1950, suggesting that, these problems have persisted long before our age and will likely continue to persist as long as dogmatic men seek to control the lives of millions. Seeking the truth is always unpopular to someone. Do I agree with everything he writes? Absolutely not. For example, his vision of global government seems far fetched. I suspect he even thought this but dared to hope. Was Russell an atheist? Absolutely. But he clearly has more knowledge and appreciation for Christianity and the concept of grace than many Christians I know.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

He’s right about 90% of the time (minus some post-WWII predictions that didn’t quite pan out), which is both wonderful to read (because it feels sane) and terrible to read (because there hasn’t been any meaningful progress since this was written).

[Arne Grote · Rating 3 out of 5]

Hörbuch

[Joseph R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Betrand Russell is a philosopher and author who has the strange combination of a strict logical background (he wrote the seminal text on symbolic logic Principia Mathematica with A. N. Whitehead) and a breezy and familiar (i.e. not academic) writing style. He is both a strict thinker and an entertaining writer. So why would these essays be "unpopular?" According to Russell, he argues against errors on both sides of the political landscape, debunking both the left and the right. He thinks his writing is unpalatable to many, possibly the majority, of people. At least that's his contention in the preface.

He is quite excellent at analyzing the biases of various groups from all periods of history, including today. Two main arguments come up several times in different essays. First, he argues that men should seek an honest understanding of each other. They should recognize the fundamental equality of each nationality, race, religion, and sex. A lot of suffering and injustice could end immediately. Charity towards and tolerance of others would go a long way in establishing a more peaceful and harmonious society.

His second argument is that one world government is needed to create the sort of unity the human race needs. Governments naturally conflict with one another. When he wrote these essays (the late 1940s), the looming conflict was between the United States of America and the Soviet Union. Russell feared another world war would be far too devastating to the world population. He favored the Americans for their more liberal and less repressive form of government.

I found his style in the book both entertaining and caustic, much the way I feel about Rush Limbaugh and Michael Moore. Russell is willing to argue from oversimplifications to bolster his arguments (e.g. did no one treat women fairly before the twentieth century?). He says there's no scientific evidence for the human soul and therefore dismisses it. But what theologian (other than a crackpot) would say there is scientific evidence? Plenty of arguments can be made in favor of the human soul, but not mathematical proofs. I found myself agreeing and disagreeing with him at various points throughout the book.

His predictions are interesting in their inaccuracy. America did win the Cold War but did not establish a world government, an objective that seems as intangible as the human soul. The book is a fascinating bit of intellectual history but not as relevant as it surely seemed seventy-five years ago.

[Bibliophile Doctor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It is hard to review a book that contains writings covering such a broad range of subjects. It will also be difficult to do justice to such a text, especially given the plethora of reviews already available.

From anti-war advocacy, to education, liberty, democracy, and women’s rights; the author of this enlightening collection of essays discusses liberal values in such a way that makes them seem timeless; truly, a visionary in championing many of these rights, considering the time in which they were written. While reading, I found myself often amazed at the realisation that these essays were written close to a century ago. It then does make sense why these are titled “Unpopular”, as his thought process opposed the prevailing ideas at the time. As an entry into the works of Bertrand Russell, I cannot imagine, personally, a book that will trump this one.

Some personal favorites are An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish, The Functions of a Teacher, and The Future of Mankind.

An Outline of Intellectual Rubbish provides a satirical analysis of prevalent ideas held by contemporary, and historical figures; a takedown of various contradications and hypocritical beliefs held by society in his time. Truly one of the best essays in this anthology.

The Functions of a Teacher was a brilliant essay and puts forward ideas that I fully endorse personally. The author indicates that teacher should be given liberty to inculcate impartiality, reason, and critical thinking, and not subject pupils to the indoctrination of narrow nationalistic values; although this is an ideal that may not be practical in today’s paradigm, especially in countries deeply rooted in theological and religious value systems. It is still worthwhile chasing this ideal especially since teachers, aside from parents, are the most important personalities responsible for moulding the malleable minds of children.

The Future of Mankind induced the kind of u-turn in emotions I’ve not witnessed in recent memory. From a bleak, negative set of predictions, Russell manages to conjure up the most elegant of solutions to the major predicaments of his time, and indeed, the seeds sown then are showing fruit in the world today.

This is the first of Bertrand Russell’s books I picked up, and I’m ruing not having read him before.